At OWL, the three Circles of members (Leader, Researcher, Professional) come together to guide the overall program of research.
The research per se is undertaken by the members of the Research Circle in their role as professors, post-docs, and doctoral students at universities around the world. These researchers may work on specific projects (conceptual and empirical) in different Tracks. These projects may be solo or collaborative in nature, and the collaborations may be with other scholars in the Researcher Circle or with others not affiliated with OWL. When the research projects get completed, information about the studies and the findings are posted on OWL for others to access. These could be in the form of publications, conference presentations, books and book chapters, and media articles – basically information that would shed light on or contribute to creating the conditions for optimal work lives.
The members of the Leader Circle serve as a sounding board for the different research projects undertaken by the researchers in two ways. First, drawing on their experience they react to the results from the different studies and assess the contributions from a practical and applied viewpoint. Their comments and questions play a key role in sharpening the insights and takeaways from the different studies and point the researchers towards areas for future studies. Second, they bring to the attention of the researchers the issues, challenges, and dilemmas pertaining to the quality of work lives that they encounter in their organizations and in the broader society that the researchers ought to be investigating. This ensures that the topics and questions that the researchers are exploring are current, relevant and important.
The members of the Professional Circle influence the workings of OWL in a profound and practical way. They are the end users of the ideas and suggestions that emerge from the different projects at OWL. They have free access to all the output from OWL and can connect to the researchers themselves for a deeper dive into any of the studies and their implications. OWL is a one-stop repository for cutting-edge research and expertise on a wide range of issues and topics related to optimal work lives and the members of the Professional Circle are key beneficiaries and enactors of this knowledge. Through their experience applying the different learnings in their own work lives (and that of their teams), they point out what works and what falls short in real life and in real time. This, in turn, guides the researchers in fine tuning their research and/or starting new lines of inquiries to address the missing pieces. Members of the Professional Circle can also pose questions in the discussion forum (Ask OWL) for issues and challenges they face regarding creating the conditions for optimal work lives, and get comments and suggestions from the others members based on the studies done to date, prior experience, and expertise.
